


The Age of Not Believing

by romanticalgirl



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-23
Updated: 2013-04-23
Packaged: 2017-12-09 06:44:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/771224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanticalgirl/pseuds/romanticalgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Worst of all, you doubt yourself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Age of Not Believing

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday to my dearest [](http://nolivingman.livejournal.com/profile)[**nolivingman**](http://nolivingman.livejournal.com/). Thanks to [](http://inlovewithnight.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://inlovewithnight.livejournal.com/)**inlovewithnight** for beta duty in a fandom not her own.
> 
> Originally posted 8-14-07

There is, of course, cleaning to be done.

Well, not cleaning so much as rebuilding, but it’s a task that she finds herself imminently suited for. The tricks and turns of Hogwarts are well known to her now – she and Neville – and so she helps him draw up maps and discusses how things should go, and somewhere deep in Dumbledore’s office - McGonagall’s office now, but always Dumbledore’s office - they find original blueprints lining what had once been Fawkes’s cage.

They work and work, OWLS and NEWTS the last things on their minds as they learn Charms they’d never imagined and Defense Against the Dark Arts as they weave the walls back together. Neville and Sprout manage the gardens and the topiary, and somewhere in the distance the Unicorns and Centaurs and Giants rumble in the Forbidden Forest, rebuilding for themselves as well.

The Room of Requirement is unplotted, as always, something that simply will be when it’s needed, and that’s truly all that needs to be said about it. She finds it interesting though, when she goes past, that the door is always there, even though she never opens it. She doesn’t think she needs anything, but perhaps she’s wrong. She’s rarely wrong about such things, but one never knows.

So she opens it one day.

Neville is standing by the fireplace, and she doesn’t recognize what the room has become. It’s no longer the practice room, and certainly no longer the hideaway Dumbledore’s Army once called home. She tilts her head and looks at him, and it’s strange, almost, how he’s turned into a man overnight. Perhaps he’s always been one and, like the others, she’s been too blind to see.

“Hullo, Neville.”

He nods and there is a picture on the table in front of him. It’s of a couple, arms around each other and laughing, dancing, perhaps in the snow. They don’t look at Neville, so caught up in each other, and he traces the frame with a finger that doesn’t quite shake. “You know what’s funny about being a…a hero?”

“Heroes lives are rarely funny, I’ve found. Heroes require tragedy, unless they’re the sort of adventuring heroes who wander off into the darkest jungles to find the winged nosgraffs, but they’re not so much heroes as just terribly interesting.”

He nods and pulls his hand back, shoving it into the pocket of his trousers. He’s taller than she remembers and leaner, and his eye is still slightly swollen and a lovely shade of lilac that reminds her of the violent overquills of Madagascar that her father once showed her in a flora book. “Perhaps funny’s the wrong word.”

“I’ve found it usually is.”

He nods again and a small smile curves the corner of his mouth. “That’s them. My mum and dad.”

“Harry has a picture quite similar.”

“I know.”

“I miss my mother sometimes. Quite a lot, actually.”

“Heroes never get that they’re done, you know? They always think there’s something else. Like maybe they’re not sure they’re actually heroes so much as just blokes who happened to do the right thing once and now everyone expects it of them.” He sighs and slips his hand free, tracing the frame again. She steps closer and sees that the frame is polished silver, an intricate lacing around it created by interwoven gum wrappers. “I thought perhaps I’d be the one to kill her.”

“Would it have changed anything?”

His other hand comes free and he holds up a gum wrapper, folding it carefully. She sees that there’s a link missing in his design, something unfinished about it all. “No.”

“I think heroes are the ones who do what must be done, simply because it has to be done.” She steps closer and touches his shoulder, watches as he threads the gum wrapper into place. “They’re not heroes by choice, but by chance.”

“By destiny?”

“No. I don’t really believe in that, you know.” She leans her head on his shoulder as he folds the wrapper over, completing the pattern. “Of course, I was never terribly good at Divination.”

Neville nods and exhales, leaning his head against her. “They passed on last week. In their sleep. Was peaceful at least. Perhaps with Voldemort gone, they finally felt they could rest.”

“Or maybe they knew.” She says the words softly, her hand reaching down to tangle with his, fingers threading together. “Maybe they knew that you did what needed to be done.”

“You think that’s true?”

“I think most everything is true if you believe it enough.”

Neville laughs and nods again. “I think I’ll choose to believe it then.” His fingers tighten around hers, and she can feel the scars from plantings gone wrong, from punishments not deserved and from the war they lived through. “You fancy Dean Thomas then, do you?”

“Dean?”

“You have a bond, both kidnapped and the lot.”

“We all have a bond, Neville. We’re friends. Survivors. We bury the dead, we rebuild and we live. Eventually we die. No less heroes for being old and in our beds than those who died in Hogwarts’ halls.”

“Is that a yes or a no?”

“About Dean?”

“Yes. About Dean.”

“He’s very nice.”

Neville sighs. “He is at that. A yes, then.”

“I suppose that’s true.” Luna tilts her head back and kisses his cheek. There are lines he’s earned yet doesn’t deserve that make him old before his time, but still Neville. Always Neville. “If you choose to believe it.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Hmm.” Luna pulls away and walks toward the door, realizing she needed something after all. “I’m not sure. I’ve never not believed something myself.”

“So you believe that, about Dean.” He nods. “Not believing…would you like to try it, do you think?”

“I believe I would like that. Very much.”  



End file.
